In September the director of the Bridging the Gap project, Frederico Martire, will visit a total of five countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Sudan, Ecuador, Paraguay) to establish a first contact with the local partners that will participate in the project during the first phase. The goal of these visits is to meet the local teams and drive development of the action plans.

The first of these meetings is taking place in Burkina Faso, where he will meet the members of the European Union delegation to the country, the counterparts in the ministries, as well as the organisations of persons with disabilities and of civil society in preparation for the activities to be developed in Burkina Faso. During these meetings the logical framework, sectoral approaches and the indicators of the country’s Action Plan will be discussed.

The meetings to be held over these days will also serve to share the objectives of Bridging the Gap with the international agencies (IA), non-governmental organisations (NGO), development agencies and other relevant players, both national and international, and to obtain input that can be used in the project.

Bridging the Gap II is a project funded by the European Union and led by FIIAPP aimed at contributing to the socio-economic inclusion, equality and non-discrimination of persons with disabilities in five middle- and low-income countries (Ecuador, Ethiopia, Paraguay, Burkina Faso and Sudan), through institutional strengthening and the development of more inclusive and responsible policies.

Collaborations in the Bridging the Gap II project

The project is being managed in collaboration with the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (IADC), Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and two international agencies in the disability world: the European Disability Forum (EDF), the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC), as well as the Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation (DG DEVCO), the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, as observers.